Trick or Treat
Once summer ends with Labor Day, it’s a long run to Thanksgiving. In 1937, thanks to extensive lobbying by the Catholic organization, the Knights of Columbus, FDR declared October 12th to be the national holiday of Columbus Day, which supposedly commemorates the “discovery” of America by Christopher Columbus on October 12th, 1492. In theory, that holiday broke up that three month holiday dry spell nicely, but it never really took hold as a full holiday across the entire nation. It is a recognized Federal holiday in 28 states and a state holiday in another 22 states, but only an estimated 14% of the American working force has the day off from work. A number of states have preferred to use the day to somehow or another commemorate indigenous people rather than a man who died of under a bit of a cloud as a somewhat brutal governor who condoned slavery and abuse of the “Indians” who he actually gave that name when he mistook his landing in the Bahamas as having reached the East Indies. So, I am forced to say that Columbus Day is not much of a holiday at all. And then there is Halloween.
The historical path of Halloween as a holiday is pretty interesting. Some say it got its start as Celtic pagan ritual celebrating the harvest, but naturally, like most holidays, there’s a bunch of religious involvement that brings saints and martyrs into the picture. The Christian origins seem to have more gravitas since Halloween represents the eve before All Saint’s Day when the Church celebrates the hallowed dead on their roster. Adding weight to the Celtic etymology, the practice of guising or souling started in Scotland and Ireland with young people dressing up in disguises and going door to door asking for food treats. Then in 1911 it all crossed the Atlantic and some kids in Canada started going door-to-door suggesting that they be given treats or they might just prank the homeowners. I’m guessing the concept of wearing a costume for that sort of activity seemed very logical. If you took a poll of Americans and asked what Halloween means, you would likely hear very little about the Church and saints and a lot about ghouls and skeletons and costumes and candy. Now this is a holiday that Americans can get behind. It goes along well with horror movies and campfire ghost stories.
When I think about holidays and how entrenched they are in the American psyche, I think about decorations. If its a real holiday to Americans, it has a theme and the house gets decorated to celebrate the holiday and let everyone in the neighborhood know that you are a joyous holiday-centric household. Christmas decorations are legendary in America and in some sort of order or other, the other big holidays fall into line. Note that not all of these are sanctioned as Federal Holidays, but that is my whole point. New Years gets some confetti and champagne glasses with an old dude with a sign with last year on it and a baby with the new year on a banner. I am going to skip MLK Day and President’s Day because I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a house done up for either. Valentine’s Day gets lots of red and hearts with cupids with bow and arrow. March get’s all green with shamrocks for St, Patrick’s Day with lots of green beer to celebrate. Easter usually comes in April with bunnies and eggs all done up in yellow and other pastels. The start of Summer comes with Memorial Day. The summer holidays all have patriotic themes and there are flags and lots of red/white/blue bunting all around. Some just keep the patriotic shit up from Memorial Day through Labor Day, peaking on Independence Day with some fireworks and firecrackers thrown into the mix. I’m not sure anyone knows how to deal with or decorate for Juneteenth, the newest Federal Holiday on June 19th. We have a Juneteenth flag that’s red, white and blue, of course, but it also has an exploding star in the middle that seems to symbolize the new day on the horizon for America by finally including the important history of slavery and racial oppression. I think it will be hard to decorate for all that sentiment. Since no one that I know decorates for Columbus Day or Veterans Day, that leaves Halloween and Thanksgiving. Most people try to combine the autumnal themes of Halloween and Thanksgiving with some mutuality of pumpkins and gourds. But one thing is for sure, people want to decorate for Halloween.
That puts Halloween on the American holiday shortlist. I think its even more so because of the tradition of trick or treat. We decorate for others and to make a statement. When it comes to Halloween, I think its fair to say its all about those little costumed ghouls and ghosts with their pumpkin buckets hoping to be filled with desirable candy versus the sort that gets taken out of the pile to donate to Dad. But all that seems to be changing and broadening. I really noticed it when we lived in New York City. Halloween is a VERY big adult partying day (not to suggest that trick or treating has taken anything like a back seat). People have always loved a good masquerade ball. It’s fun, plain and simple. But then add the extra fun of the spooky and ghoulish aspects of Halloween and its not hard to understand why Halloween parties are way up.
Go into Home Depot, Lowe’s or Walmart at this time of year and you see that the entire front section of the store is taken up by Halloween paraphernalia specifically design for more and more outrageous decorating. I’ve been watching those 8’ high skeletons for a few years and hearing my daughter Carolyn, a big holiday decorator inheriting that from her mother, wonder about where she would store such a monster during the off-season. Then, this year we got in the mail, a Grand-in-Road catalogue completely dedicated to Halloween home decorations. This was not a flyer or part of a catalogue, it was a full and glossy catalogue that from start to finish had page after page of upscale, downscale, serious and frivolous decorations that all themed to Halloween. There were skeletons of all sorts and materials (white, cream, gold, gunmetal, etc.) as well as all sizes and even all species (human, giant, two-headed dogs, and even mice). There were creative ghosts and witches, bats and tombstones. And spiders and their webs and bats and crows were on every page, hanging, on lamps, on black brooms, with red lighted eyes and even on coco door mats. I couldn’t believe it.
I have looked through that catalogue three times now wondering what I could buy for me and/or my daughter/granddaughters and thankfully, while I have considered all sorts of interesting decorations and places to put them, I have refrained from making any purchases. Kim tells me that she has had the same urge while out shopping and seeing all the options that are available and that she too has shown the discipline to not buy any of these monstrosities that look like fun and then go on to plague our storage rooms for years to come. I’m not sure if this love of Halloween is fleeting or a secular trend, but I am prepared to say that any impulse buys will likely be regretted in a year or two regardless of the trend’s sustainability. I am choosing to ignore that Kim will loads up with pumpkins this weekend when we go out to Bates Nut Farm and that they will sit on our front and kitchen door stoops until they turn to mush. I can already tell that there may be a few small Halloween critters in the mix as well, but I will stand by the unlikelihood of any life-size or bigger skeletons getting to our stoops. I can no longer separate the trick from the treat in our Halloween mix, so I’ll just end with a hearty…BOO!